


Love, Quidditch, and Talking to Snakes

by slythwolf



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 20:57:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slythwolf/pseuds/slythwolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ginny’s different. Pansy thinks that’s brilliant, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love, Quidditch, and Talking to Snakes

**Author's Note:**

> This must have been written pre-HBP. Squint carefully for a reference to Minerva McTabby’s “Two Worlds and In Between”, to which I am shamelessly addicted.

What first draws you to her is that she’s different. In a house consisting of the same old Gryffindors, in a school where everyone’s still obsessed with Harry Potter (whether they’re loving him or hating him this week, it doesn’t matter), in a family full of sons she’s the only Ginny. She’s apparently tired of being what she’s expected to be and has moved on, grown up, broken free.

You want to be free like that, so you start to pay closer attention to her.

You can’t talk to her about it for a long time because of who you are. You start to feel like you can’t talk to her about anything, ever, but she surprises you.

“I know what you’re up to with Quidditch,” she says one Saturday in September, coming up to you by the side of the lake out of the blue, “and I think it’s brilliant.”

You want to say something witty and cutting and very, very Slytherin, but she’s got this way of being the opposite of what you expect and therefore making your mind roll over onto its metaphorical back and proffer its metaphorical belly for her to scratch.

“Yeah?” you say.

“Yeah, I do,” says Ginny, plopping unceremoniously down beside you and tucking her knees into her chest. “About time somebody did something. I thought, you know, ambition. Cunning. Whatever. Girls don’t get sorted into Slytherin to sit on their arses and let the boys have all the fun.”

“So you found out about this how, exactly?” you say, looking over at her, and she ducks her head and grins.

“Got connections,” she says. “Too bad you can’t do anything about the first-string team.”

“No,” you say. “Yeah. Sucks.”

“Boys,” says Ginny, “are stupid. You’re setting a precedent, at least.”

You’re not entirely following the conversation. You don’t know what “connections” she’s talking about and you can’t figure out how she could have found out about your plans, but you’re kind of glad to have a new perspective on what you’ve chosen to affectionately dub The Lady Serpents Quidditch Project. Even if it is from a Gryffindor sixth-year. Especially if it’s from Ginny.

“You probably don’t want to help us train,” you laugh.

Ginny looks at you, and her brown eyes sparkle, and she’s oh. Beautiful. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

Your turn to duck your head, and you blush. “Can if I want.”

She punches you playfully in the shoulder. “Yeah. So. When have you got the Pitch? Who’s on your team, how do they fly?”

And you stare. “You’re going to help?”

“Can if I want.” She winks.

And over the next couple of months you meet her, secretly at first until you realize nobody’s looking anyway, to work on strategies and plays and to whip your team into shape. And then one evening she says something about “bloody Snape,” and you ask her about her Potions marks, and you start meeting in the library to help her with her homework, because who better than a Slytherin, and besides, you’re good at Potions.

And in thanks for that, or perhaps for no reason at all, Ginny comes up with a Foolproof Plan. You love the plan, the team loves the plan, and this is going to be the best year ever.

In November you learn what “connections” Ginny was talking about, when you see her and Aneris Weatherwax, your oldest Chaser, working on some sixth-year Herbology project, and Aneris’ little corn snake, Midgaard, is curled around Ginny’s upper arm and looks almost like he’s whispering in her ear. Aneris is engrossed in the book, so she doesn’t see Ginny turn her head and hiss at Middie, but you do.

And later you ask her about it, and Ginny kind of blushes and mutters, “Yeah, don’t tell anybody, okay? Everyone thinks it was just Tom.”

“Tom?”

She shakes her head. “You-Know-Who.” And you remember second year, and you don’t push it.

You think you should have realized it, actually. Ginny’s good at talking to snakes. You’re a prime example.

Over the Christmas holidays you wonder whether you should give her anything, wonder how much friendship there is in this strange alliance. And you figure, what the hell, spend Daddy’s money, he doesn’t need it. So you send her some sweets.

On Christmas morning, there’s no present from Ginny Weasley at the foot of your bed. You try not to be disappointed. You try not to think about it, which of course only makes it that much more vivid in your mind.

At midnight she’s tapping on your window, way high up in the wall at ground level, and you stand on Millie’s trunk to see what she wants.

She’s got her broom in one hand and a Golden Snitch in the other, and her eyes are shining and her hair is full of snow. Painstakingly, she writes “come to the pitch”, backwards in the frost on the window. “Come on,” she mouths. You nod, and you get dressed and grab your broom and go.

It’s chilly, not blisteringly cold, and the snowflakes are the big, fluffy kind that make the whole world soft and pretty, and the Moon, behind a haze of cloud, is full and bright. Everything’s painted silver, even Ginny’s hair.

“What are we doing out here?” you call, and you’re smiling, and she sees and smiles back.

“Training!” she cries.

Ginny hops on her broom and pushes off, and you have pretty much no choice but to follow.

She releases the Snitch, then tucks into a little loop and shoots straight up, high above you, and you go after her, as – you realize – you’ve been doing pretty much all year. Strange that she should be the one to lead.

Different.

You spend hours chasing after the Snitch, and sometimes you catch it, and sometimes she does, and you can’t seem to keep score in your head but you can _feel_ yourself improving. She’s as good as you are, despite being a year younger, and you try to hold it against her.

“Thank you,” you say, flushed and happy, standing in the snow under the posts, the Snitch still trembling in your fist.

She looks shy, the way she used to, before she bloomed in your fifth year into who she is now. “Happy Christmas,” she says.

And before you even know what you’re doing your arms are around her and your mouth is on hers. And she’s kissing back, her hands are stroking through your hair, and this is what you were looking for. This is what you were after the whole time – why didn’t you notice?

So for the next few months your meetings, some of them, go back to being secret again, and you buy her lots more sweets, and nobody notices anything untoward about you, Ginny, Quidditch, or anything at all.

Except for maybe Snape, because her Potions marks improve, though of course he knows what’s going on with Quidditch and Ginny helping, because he books the Pitch for you, and maybe that’s why.

Millie notices in March, and she corners you after Charms and confronts you in her unique Millie way.

“Are you in love with Ginny Weasley?” she says.

And you don’t deny it, and because Millie’s one of your Beaters she knows how much help Ginny is and how she’s different, and Millie thinks it’s great and she promises not to tell anybody until you decide the time is right.

In April you decide it’s time to bait the hook, and you arrive about five minutes late to lunch and you stride up to Draco and call him out.

“Why did you cut Millie from the team when she tried out?” you ask.

“She’s not good enough,” Draco sneers. “You know that, Pansy.”

“She’s better than Crabbe and Goyle,” you retort. “You cut a lot of people that shouldn’t have been cut, and you know it.”

“Yes, well, Pansy, you see, I am the Quidditch Captain, and you are not, and it is not your place to make these kinds of decisions.”

“Yes, well, _Draco_ ,” you reply sweetly, “you see, I am the Reserve Quidditch Captain, and you are not, and you don’t know how good my girls are because you’re blinded by the fact that they don’t have _pricks_.”

“I beg your pardon?” says Draco lazily, and sips his pumpkin juice.

“The institution of Slytherin Quidditch,” you begin, slipping into the speech you and Ginny prepared weeks ago, “has been exclusively male for over four hundred years. It’s really past time that situation was rectified – the other houses bounced right back when witches were admitted to Hogwarts again. So we, that is, the Reserve team, are challenging you to a match. We thought we’d better give you some time to prepare – we are, after all, fairly daunting opponents – so we’ve set the date for 30 May.”

Draco is snickering. “What makes you think we would bother to fly against you?”

You lift an eyebrow. “Look around, Draco. If you don’t, the entire school will know you’re afraid to be beaten by a bunch of _girls_.”

And that tears it, and they agree to the match, and when 30 May rolls around Ginny shows up with a flashing sign that reads, alternately, “Go Lady Serpents” and “Four balls are ENOUGH!”

You absolutely flatten them. Ginny’s Foolproof Plan is a complete success.

She rushes the Pitch, tackling you to the ground, and she’s kissing you in front of everyone, and you think this is probably the best day of your life, with Draco pouting and the Snitch in your left hand and the back of Ginny’s head in your right.

Ron Weasley talks a lot of talk about killing you for corrupting his sweet little sister, but Ginny works on him with her puppy-dog eyes, and eventually he agrees that anybody who can humiliate Draco like that can’t be half bad, so Millie doesn’t have to be your bodyguard for too long.

“We should challenge Gryffindor,” says Ginny, after her own house wins the Quidditch Cup. “I want to see if we have the best team in the school. I bet we could win.”

And you love that she says “we” as if she’s a part of the team, because she practically _is_ , but you shake your head and laugh. “It’s too late, Gin. There’s not enough time left.”

And there really isn’t enough time, not for Quidditch, not for the two of you, because it’s almost the end of the year and this is your last year in school and you don’t know how you’re going to keep this thing with her going after you leave. You’ve never seen it work before.

But then, Ginny’s different.


End file.
